Adventures in Teaching Kids How to Code

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Month: March 2015

We’re sad to be saying goodbye to our Community Manager Michael Mentessi as he moves on to pastures new. Michael has been a fantastic Community Manager and I’m sure many of you will have met him at various events over the last year. He’s worked tirelessly to organise meet-ups all over the UK, support our ever growing volunteer community, and kick started our team of amazing Regional Coordinators. We thank him for his hard work, dedication and ability to bring people together.

We’re now looking for a new Community Manager to help us grow and support our community of volunteers here in the UK. Please help us spread the word about this role – if you know an enthusiastic community builder with an aptitude for strategic leadership then send them our way: http://codeclub.workable.com/jobs/46865/candidates/new

“Hey Code Club”, we hear you say, “I need some advice. I really want to volunteer, there’s a great school close by, I just need to convince my boss.” Don’t worry, Future Volunteer — pull up a chair! We know it can be tricky working out the best way to find the flexibility to volunteer during the working day. We’ve got a few ideas that might help:

Buddy up
Some volunteers go solo, but others work in small groups. This can either be by alternating weeks, or sharing a club together so that there’s always ‘volunteer cover’ if one person is unavailable.

Beat the clock
We know that the end of the school day doesn’t work for everyone. Lots of schools run breakfast and lunchtime clubs; they may well be able to be more flexible than you think!

Go alternative
Code Clubs don’t always take place in a school – the universe of Code Clubs is wide and varied! If a weekday doesn’t work for you, there are libraries and community centres out there who would love to have your time on a Saturday morning. Code Club is about giving children the opportunity to learn to program in a fun environment with new role models to help them. It’s about wide grins, whirrs and beeps and wonderment, so ask your boss and who knows, you could start a volunteer revolution in your workplace!

Code Club’s wonderful Star Club at Barrow Hill School in St Johns Wood received a special guest visit this week from the Minister for Civil Society, Rob Wilson.

Mr Wilson was keen to see the progress the students have been making at their club, with the members of the class eagerly demonstrating their skills and the projects they have been busy working on this term.

Mr Wilson said the work of Code Club was important “because it supports talented volunteers in sharing their expertise with young people across the country so that they are learning the vital digital skills they need.” He added that “The rapid growth of the programme is evidence of its success and it’s fantastic that half of all primary schools in the UK will have access to Code Club by 2018.”

Thanks to funding from the Cabinet Office’s Centre for Social Action Innovation Fund, we’ve been able to expand our volunteer recruitment activities, and this means that we’re able to reach more kids around the country and get them involved in their own Code Clubs.

But without the hard work of all our fabulous volunteers, teachers and parents, Code Club wouldn’t be where it is today – at a current total of 2354 clubs in the UK alone!

Chris Sadler, who leads the Barrow Hill Star Club, is just one of those volunteers. He told us about his experiences; “I find it so rewarding to work with children who are genuinely excited to tackle new things. The Code Club projects are doing all the teaching – my job is to support the class as they explore and learn.”

So if you’re interested in being part of the Code Club movement, and inspiring more kids to get into coding, you too can arrange a visit to one of our Star Clubs like Barrow Hill School to see first hand what our after school clubs are all about.

Alternatively, you can also visit our volunteers page to see how you can get stuck in!